Human rights-based solutions to housing financialization are urgently needed

June 14, 2024 – Ottawa, Ontario – Office of the Federal Housing Advocate

Today, the Federal Housing Advocate, Marie-Josée Houle, issues the following statement:

The Federal Housing Advocate welcomes the new report by the review panel on the Financialization of Purpose-Built Rental Housing, which was released on May 29.

The conclusion of the first-ever human rights-based review panel hearing is a historic moment for the right to housing in Canada. I applaud the work of the review panel, and join its calls to action to better protect tenants and invest in non-market housing for all.

The report illustrates the harm that the financialization of housing is causing to people in Canada. It concluded that tenants in particular are severely impacted by financial practices in the rental housing sector, including those purchasing property solely for short-term financial gain. The panel also noted that the rapid loss of affordable rental housing and long-term underinvestment in non-market housing is most impacting disadvantaged groups and tenants in greatest need.

The panel heard from over 200 witnesses from impacted communities, along with human rights and housing experts, who shared their expertise on the issue in the panel’s written and oral hearings.

Human rights-based solutions to financialization are urgently needed. The federal government must take up the recommendations issued by the review panel, including measures to increase the supply of affordable, non-market rental housing as well as support the non-market sector, actively protect existing affordable rental supply, and support and protect tenants facing housing precarity.

Canada recognized housing as a human right in the 2019 National Housing Strategy Act. The Act also created accountability tools to uphold this right, including the review panel process. As the review panel’s report makes clear: housing is as fundamental and universal a human right as healthcare. The federal government must lead the way to ensure housing is treated as a human right and a public good.

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Background

  • Research led by the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate shows that Canada is short 4.4 million affordable homes for those in housing need, while 20-30 percent of Canada’s purpose-built rental buildings have been bought by large corporate investors, also known as financialization.
  • Review panels are a participatory, human rights-based, access to justice mechanism established by the National Housing Strategy Act, which recognized housing as a human right in domestic law for the first time. Instead of hearing individual complaints about human rights violations, review panels hold hearings on systemic housing issues. The Federal Housing Advocate has the authority to issue a request to the National Housing Council to establish an independent review panel.
  • The findings and recommendations of the review panel will be set out in a report to the Minister. The Minister must respond to the report within 120 days and table that response in the House of Commons and the Senate.
  • The next review panel to be launched by the National Housing Council will focus on homelessness among women, Two Spirit and gender-diverse people, based on a May 2023 request from the Federal Housing Advocate.

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